


A Toast

by Quantum_Overload



Series: Forgotten Files [14]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Christmas Party, Constructive Criticism Welcome, How Do I Tag, I'm Bad At Tagging, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28521435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quantum_Overload/pseuds/Quantum_Overload
Summary: The first and only time Siana didn't duck out of the festivities to watch on high by the end of the night.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Original Character & Original Character, Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Original Male Character & Original Male Character
Series: Forgotten Files [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089077





	A Toast

A party was going on all around me, bright and joyous and giddy, Christmas cheer in full swing. There were people I hadn’t seen in months and people I had run into yesterday celebrating and talking all around me, all of us brought together by one girl; Siana. Thinking of her I looked around to find her knowing that, usually, she’d be among the throngs of people easily engaged in three different conversations at once before abruptly leaving to talk to someone else she’d seen. But I couldn’t find her, which was odd.

We have the party on a flat in front of a hill, facing the rising moon in the night. On that hill there sits a single pine tree, some years it’s decorated in candles, some years twinkling fairy lights, one year the only thing that adorned it was a small doll and teddy bear. If you stand under the tree on the top of the hill you can see the whole valley and everyone celebrating at once. I would know, I’ve been up there every year. So I slipped out of the back of the crowds and headed up the hill.

  


A party was going on down below me, happy and light and loving. All the people who’d stood beside me to help me get this far were gathered there. And here I was on high, looking back on it all, how far I’d come because of them, from the shade of a pine tree. A soft smile stretched on my face as I looked on in peaceful adoration, this is what I lived for, this is what I loved.

I was broken from my reverie by footsteps trampling on grass as they made their way towards me and I turned to see Renegade making his way up the hill, head down and hand empty. He only noticed I was there when he looked up and I suddenly found myself staring right into his shades. His eyebrows were raised into his hairline suggesting he was surprised, but it’s hard to read someone’s expression when you can’t see their eyes and when they’ve given up on expressing themself using anything other than their mouth; I’ve been working with him for five years and I’m still not entirely fluent.

“Hey, isn’t it a bit early for you to be brooding up here?” Ren asked softly, mouth curling into a smile that was supposed to be smug but edged on nervousness and worry.

“I’m not brooding, I'm just… Taking it all in… I mean, look how far we’ve come.”

  


Siana’s eyes were shining, affection, love, disbelief twinkling and gleaming even as her mouth thinned to a straight line from her peaceful beaming. That’s something odd I’ve noticed over the years, she always preferred to express herself with her eyes before anything else, maybe that was to reflect how I couldn’t express myself with my eyes or maybe it’s something she’s always done; five years working with her and I still don’t know everything about before our time together.

“So, is this a sign you’re going to stay up here all night and not enjoy yourself,” I sighed, despite her usually mingling extensively during the first half of the night I knew it was never for her enjoyment or her benefit, but to make sure everyone else was comfortable. She always had specific targets for conversation and topics to match, spending more time pairing people she’d thought would get along but had never met together before drifting away again. Siana frowned slightly but not like people would usually do, she didn’t furrow her eyebrows or wrinkle her nose. No, instead her eyes dulled, dipping down and to the right (away from me) her eyebrows just barely twitching closer together before jumping back to a neutral position.

“No, no, just thinking. I’ll be down in a sec, there’s something I need to do,” Siana replied after a moment as her head lifted up and they rounded. Nodding I turned around and headed back into the party.

  


I made the hike down five minutes later when they had brought out the picnic tables and everyone was sitting down but before they had pulled the food out for the meal. Viper saw me coming and had given me one of her sharp, fanged smirks. The hunter clad in dark green poured me a glass of orange juice which I picked up on my way past her to one end of the lined up tables. There I climbed up onto it, holding my glass aloft and sang.

I sang to the five years we’ve spent together, to everything I’d been given, everything I’d found. I sang to all of the good times and all the bad, to all the mistakes and triumphs as if they were the same. I sang to them… I sang to me, I sang to us. I sang to one last drink, I sang to the fight, to the burdens we bear and the job we do and the hope we give and are given. And, at the end of it all, I stood at the centre of everything I’d worked for, built, found, gathered, forged, bled and fought for. I raised my glass.

  


“To the Outcasts!” Siana toasted, raising her glass to the lone pine tree on the hill, to our history, to what we once were. The Outcasts, because it was just me and her and neither of us had a history of being very… wanted in recent memory when we first met; until I found her, it took me a month before I could say it was mutual. Some at the table looked confused, the newer members the ones that were already teams before they were indited, while others beamed and raised their glass in echo to their leader, those that Siana had pulled into the fold as soon as she’d dragged me into working with her. And it was that latter group that echoed:

“To the Outcasts!” Siana lowered her glass and pivoted on one foot to face the open air. Then, she raised her glass again and called out:

“To the Overload!” To the now and our future, to everything we are and will be. The Overload, because we realised we couldn’t be Outcasts if we had each other because Siana couldn’t stop falling in love and adding new members to our roster because we became a family. Now the confusion cleared and elation was on every face, this was something everyone recognised. Glasses were raised to the sky as a full chorus cry echoed into the night.

“To the Overload!”


End file.
